Throughout history, military forces have depended on civilian contractors of one sort or another to give their military personnel flexibility, or to fulfill logistical and support functions that soldiers do not need to do.
The Players
Commentary, The Players
Urartu Mehmet
by Lee Ridley •
Mustafa Kusman at Cavustepe. The small carpark on top of the hill, at the Urartian fortress ruins at Cavustepe, offers an impressive panorama of the surrounding countryside. A lush green plain, between two ridges, is laid out at our feet, sparsely punctuated with the occasional Kurdish village. A small hut at the entrance to the…
Commentary, The Players
Israel – Bourke Kennedy Down On The West Bank
by Stephen Shaner •
With a Christian peacemaker on the West Bank HEBRON — At an age when most people are retired or thinking about slowing down, Bourke Kennedy routinely journeys to a part of the world that the U.S. State Department strongly advises American citizens to avoid. For the past decade, Kennedy, 67, has been travelling to the…
Commentary, The Players
The Rescuers
by Jeff Shippy •
Say hello to the U.S. Army’s general order number one – NO ALCOHOL!! But it’s not all bad for being locked down 24/7: The jailed Taliban who reside about one hundred feet from my tent don’t drink anyway, so no harm-no foul for those sons-of-bitches. If anyone wants to send me a kite, however, I…
Commentary, The Players
Gangland San Salvador
by Cristobal Campos •
The quiet dirt street seems peaceful enough. An old lady is waiting out the afternoon heat under a shade tree. A small child is happily playing with a dog. Occasionally a car will pass by, the driver greeting neighbors through the rolled-down window. As I stand here in the Central American midday sun, it is…
The Players
Uranium Revolution?: Abdul Qadeer Khan and Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions
by ROB •
When the IAEA recently announced that Iran was possibly in breach of the Nuclear Weapons Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and had likely been developing an enrichment plant in the city of Natanz, the worst predictions of some appeared to have come true. The question on many people’s lips is where exactly they procured the expertise to…